Honouring the Feminine: Alice Walker in dialogue

I listened to a dialogue between author/activist Alice Walker and Jungian analyst, Harry Fogarty. Titled, "Alice Walker on Faith, Nature and Social Activism" (part of the Red Book Dialogues), a lot of the conversation revolved around the idea of the Feminine.

Walker talked about how long ago, reverence of the Feminine was common practice but fear of the free Feminine and its power (specifically creation), led men to subdue it. Men wanted soldiers, warriors and employees and so needed to control the "source" of production. This is Walker's theory on how our patriarchal world came to be. Because women are forced to produce, we have overpopulation. Overpopulation that is so unsustainable that our planet (i.e. our environment) is making us pay the price.

How does religion fit in all this? Walker connects the dominating and domineering attributes of religion as contributing to the destruction of the planet and hopes "that we can, by reinstating the Feminine, bring balance to some of the ideology that has been so harmful." She brings up individual responsibility as a solution to countering this ideology,

"We have drifted too long in this … nightmare dream that somehow we are being saved by something beyond ourselves. We're not. It's impossible. We have to do the whole work …
If you take care of your own demons, that's saving the world, because they don't then run all over the place and destroy other people."

A self-proclaimed Animist and Pagan, Walker suggests that the Self is the starting point.

Further investigation: the idea of the Feminine

Faith and riches

Some ideas about faith from an unlikely source, the classic Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

"Faith is a state of mind which may be induced or created by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind through the principle of autosuggestion."

"Faith is the starting point of all accumulation of riches.*
Faith is the basis of all miracles and all mysteries which cannot be analysed by the rules of science.
Faith is the only known antidote for failure.
Faith is the element, the chemical which, when mixed with prayer gives one direct communication with infinite intelligence.**
Faith is the element which transforms the ordinary vibration of thought created by the finite mind of man into the spiritual equivalent.
Faith is the only agency through which the cosmic force of infinite intelligence can be harnessed an used by man."


* Interesting about the book is that, financial riches are twelfth (i.e. last) in the list of what the author constitutes wealth. My initial perception of the book has been thoroughly overturned as I get through it. So far it seems to be more about working on your Self, than about getting your hands on cash (with the premise that the former can facilitate the latter!)
** "infinite intelligence" – a different way to talk about the knowledge, the spiritual energy, that is God?